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English Bible translations

English Bible translations (600s- ) turn the ancient Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic (and sometimes Latin) of the oldest known copies of Scripture into English. They have become common since the rise of printing in the 1500s.

The three main kinds of translations:

literal – a word-for-word translation, known as formal equivalence. Sticks to the words of the original as closely as possible. Good for Bible study and learning verses by heart. Not always easy to read, though.

loose – a thought-for-thought translation, known as dynamic or functional equivalence. Expresses the thoughts of the writer as a present-day English-speaking person would. Much easier to read, but adds a layer of interpretation.

intermediate – strikes a balance between literal and loose.

How old a translation is matters too. Older translations have outdated English, which can be misleading or hard to understand. Older translations also do not benefit from the latest scholarship and therefore can have known mistakes (to date, none of those discovered have been earth-shaking).

Gospel of John, circa 2014.

In 2014, the most commonly read translations in the US were:

55% KJV (1611), the King James or Authorized Version (AV), a literal translation. Anglican. Highly respected, but its English and scholarship are 400 years out of date!

19% NIV (1978), the New International Version, an intermediate translation. Evangelical Protestant.

6% NAB (1970), the New American Bible, a clunky, intermediate translation. Catholic.

5% TLB (1971), The Living Bible, a loose translation with both Catholic and Protestant versions. The version I have is clearly aimed at teenagers. Favoured by young Evangelicals.

8% Other – Jewish, Eastern Orthodox and other Catholic and Protestant Bibles. Also, Bibles in other languages, like Spanish.

Tyndale translates the Bible, 1520s.

Since 1500, the main literal translations among English-speaking Protestants have been:

1500s:

1525-31: Tyndale

1535: Coverdale

1539-41: Great Bible

1560: Geneva Bible – the Bible of Shakespeare, Milton and the Puritans

1568: Bishop’s Bible

1600s:

1611: AV/KJV: Authorized or King James Version

1700s:

1800s:

1881-85: RV: Revised Version

1900s:

1901: ASV: American Standard Version

1952: RSV: Revised Standard Version

The RSV is an update of the ASV, which updated the RV, which updated the AV, and so on all the way back to Tyndale. Since Tyndale was burned at the stake before he completed his translation, none of these translated the whole Bible from scratch. Instead they built on a base translation that started with Tyndale. It has now been worked on by hundreds of scholars over hundreds of years. It has become less nakedly Protestant so that even Catholic scholars now use it as a starting point.

The RSV has been updated three different ways:

1989: NRSV, the New Revised Standard Version – liberal Protestant.

2001: ESV, the English Standard Version – conservative Protestant.

2006: RSV-2CE, theIgnatius Bible – Catholic.

All three got rid of the RSV’sthees and thous, but dealt with its sexist language differently. The RSV is sexist even where the underlying Greek or Hebrew is not! The Ignatius Bible left that needless sexism in place. The NRSV went to the opposite extreme and became less sexist than the original Greek and Hebrew, undermining its claim to be literal. The ESV seeks to preserve the sexism of the original.

Afrofem asked: “I am curious. How did Tyndale’s not being a king indicate selection or “unselection” by the “Most High” (God?)”

Well, from my understanding and according to the scriptures, the Most High chooses who He wants to spread the gospel and not the other way around, by mere mortal man choosing Him. By man simply choosing Him literally means nothing.

John 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

Afrofem then asked: “Do you think burning at the stake was a just punishment?”

Again, what I think truly doesn’t matter. The doings and works of the Man above is what matters. This is exactly why I utilized the word PERHAPS. According to Webster’s dictionary, perhaps “is used to express uncertainty or a possibility.” Furthermore and for argument’s sake, if Tyndale was truly selected or was a man of the Most High, although I doubt it, perhaps he wouldn’t have died in such a horrible fashion.

Even further, Tyndale pushed the silly philosophy of Easter. You know, … the supposedly holy day where a rabbit produces colorful chicken eggs, … huh! This is certainly a lie. Once again, Christ never said anything about this taking place and this is probably why he died in such an excruciating manner, that is, for pushing a false doctrine.

Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ (Yahawashi in Hebrew).

“… if Tyndale was truly selected or was a man of the Most High, although I doubt it, perhaps he wouldn’t have died in such a horrible fashion.”

There are a lot of great resources on the web that describe William Tyndale. One of the most comprehensive is a writeup in the British newspaper, The Telegraph. In a June, 2013 article the author Melvyn Bragg has this to say about why William Tyndale was executed:

“His crime was to have translated the Bible into English. He was effectively martyred after fighting against cruel and eventually overwhelming forces, which tried for more than a dozen years to prevent him from putting the Word of God into his native language.

Tyndale was widely regarded as a man of great piety and equal courage and above all dedicated to, even obsessed with, the idea that the Bible, which for more than 1,000 years had reigned in Latin, should be accessible to the eyes and ears of his fellow countrymen in their own tongue.

We are all in his debt. He grounded our language. He gave to Protestantism a subtlety and fury which blazed its message across continents, most spectacularly among the [African ]American slaves who took songs and sentences from it around which they formed their campaign for freedom.

His words unleashed the imagination of many of his countrymen who had been [made] dumber by Latin. They now had direct access to the stories, the proverbs, the arguments, the wisdom, the wars and revelations and all the richness and darkness of that body of knowledge and it flowed into their conversation and into their lives. Tyndale’s Bible gave the English people permission to think rather than a duty to believe.“

I find it fascinating, blakksage, that anyone who loves to pepper his comments with biblical verses and phrases in English would consider the painful execution of the scholar who made that habit possible a good thing. Or even an acceptable thing.

William Tyndale made your understanding of the Bible possible. Imagine how much poorer your life would be without that understanding. That is what life was like in England prior to William Tyndale’s work.

To me, William Tyndale died in such a “horrible fashion” not because of the will of God, but because of the selfishness and powerlust of men.

Afrofem said: “I find it fascinating, blakksage, that anyone who loves to pepper his comments with biblical verses and phrases in English would consider the painful execution of the scholar who made that habit possible a good thing. Or even an acceptable thing.”

Proverbs 4:7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

CHUCKLES! Your post is quite hilarious. I’m going to stop here because obviously, you have no understanding of the Bible. Thus far, you appear to be unmistakably, quite vacuous. Therefore, stop fronting and just say you lack understanding and therefore, incapable of discerning facts from fallacies. Even further, just say you’re not sure if a rabbit or chicken lay eggs (chuckles).

Personally, I respect people more when they admit the truth or openly say they don’t comprehend something. I’ll admit I’m still a child of the Bible in terms of understanding. But you sir, is less than that of a fetus or an embryo, which qualify you as a zygote!

Psalm 147:19-20 He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. 20 He hath not dealt so with any nation:

Isaiah 29:22 Therefore thus saith the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale. (This scripture alone should be a hint, relative to why I care less about what happened to Tyndale).

Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

Hi-me-up when you attain some semblance of understanding of the Bible! The END, curtains now being drawn closed (more chuckles).

“How is the RSV more sexist than the Greek and Hebrew texts? That would have been a good place to link to your research.”

There are examples all over the place. For example, in Matthew 10:36, the KJV, RSV and RSV-2CE have “a man’s foes”. The NRSV has “one’s foes”. The ESV translates it as “a person’s enemies”.

For current English, “a person’s enemies” is right.

The Greek word in question is anthropos, which means a human being, male or female, like in the English word anthropology. “Man” in English can mean that too, but it is a maddeningly ambiguous word when used that way, as in “all men are created equal”. So “person’s” and “one’s” is better – especially in a passage like this one where Jesus is talking about fathers and mothers.

As to “foe”, it is now a “formal or literary” word, says the Oxford dictionary. The Greek word is the just the plain one for enemy.

But anthropos when referring is a individual is meant to refer to a male. Otherwise we get such silliness as 1 Corinthians 7:1 being “It is good for a human being not to touch a woman” instead of “it is good for a man not to touch a woman”. Anthropos when applied to an individual is not used to mean female. The greek word gyne is used for the singular female. Anthropoi with is the plural version of anthropos is gender-neutral. Anthropos itself is not gender-neutral, but there is a movement that is advocating inclusive language that is trying to redefine it as gender-neutral.

Other examples of biblical scriptures where anthropos is not meant to be gender-neutral:
•Matthew 19:5 “Therefore shall an anthropos leave his father and mother, and hold fast to his wife.” (also in Ephesians 5:31)
•Matthew 19:10 “If such is the case of an anthropos with his wife, it is better not to marry.”
•Deuteronomy 17:5. “Then you shall bring out that anthropos or that woman, and you shall stone them with stones”
•Deuteronomy 22:24. “They shall be stoned with stones, and they shall die, the young woman, because she did not cry out in the city, and the anthropos, because he violated his neighbor’s wife.”
•Esther 4:11. “whosoever, anthropos or woman, shall go in to the king in the inner court uncalled, there will not be deliverance from death for that one [ουκ εστιν αυτω σωτηρια].” In addition to the clear opposition of anthropos and gyne here, notice the expression which is used at the end of the sentence. When the author wants to use a gender-neutral expression he does not use anthropos, he uses the neuter personal pronoun αυτω, “that one.”
•Ecclesiastes 7:28. “One anthropos among a thousand I have found, but a woman among all these I have not found.”
•Isaiah 4:1. “Seven women shall take hold of one anthropos, saying, we will eat our own bread, and wear our own raiment; only let your name be called upon us, and take away our reproach.”
•Jeremiah 51:7 [English 44:7]. “to cut off anthropos and woman of you, infant and suckling from the midst of Judah…”
•I Esdras 9:40. “So Ezra the chief priest brought the law for all the multitude, from anthropos to woman, and all the priests, to hear the law…”
•Tobit 6:7. “If a demon or evil spirit gives trouble to any one, you make a smoke from these before the anthropos or woman…

1 Corinthians 2:14 is a good example of how the issue of gender neutral language has been dealt with.

RSV:

“The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

The RSV uses “man” and “he”. The Greek, however, is gender neutral: it does not use gendered pronouns and for “man” it has anthropos, which means a human being regardless of sex. (Brian and some others, though, disagree with that.)

Here is how the three updates to the RSV have dealt with its sexism:

RSV-2CE: no change. Uses “man” and “he”.

ESV uses “person” and “he”:

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

NRSV uses “those” and “they”:

“Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

NRSV uses plural pronouns because they are gender-neutral in English. ESV sees that as clunky and unliteral, using “he” instead.”, but does translate anthropos as “person”, not “man”.

How many dictionaries are you using for your definition of words? The definitions of words do change over time as the views and values of those defining the words change over time.

Girl used to refer to a child of either sex.

Wench referred to a female child (it came from wenchel which meant a child of either sex).

Meat used to refer to solid food.

Naughty used to refer to the poor or those that had nothing (naught).

Nice used to mean silly, foolish, simple.

Fizzle referred to producing a quiet flatulence.

A bachelor was a young knight.

Flirt was flicking something away.

Hussy came from housewife and meant the mistress of the household.

In my Bible reading I have done word studies on words like Corn. Corn as we commonly know it today came from Mexico and Central America which is actually Maize (or the kernels of maize). Corn actually refers to the kernels of many different plants but that is not something that I was taught growing up.

My disciple recommended that I keep a copy of Webster’s 1828 dictionary at hand to better understand many of the words used in the KJV Bible.

To properly understand what the writers meant to write, we have to use older dictionaries and the context that the word was used in. Literal translations of the Bible read more sexist than the thought-for-thought translations or dynamic equivalence. Dynamic equivalences are more readable but can be vulnerable to being written on how the writer interprets the verse. There are over 50 English translations. You choose the 3rd most popular (ESV), 8th (NRSV), the RSV (not ranked). The most popular is the KJV which is the preferred version of about 50% of American Christians and the NIV is 2nd at about 20 to 25%. The rest are in the single digits.

“What about the St Joseph and Douay-Rheims bibles? Older Catholics would have used those, right?”

Right, there is a different line of English Catholic translations. In rough chronological order: Douay-Rheims, CCD, New American Bible (St Joseph), New Jerusalem Bible, Ignatius Bible, etc. The last one is adapted from the RSV, an English Protestant translation.

Older Catholic Bibles, those from before the 1960s (the first two listed above), translate the Vulgate, the Latin Bible, not the original Hebrew and Greek. As it turns out, though, the CCD, even though it was translating Latin, winds up closer to the original Greek of the New Testament than, say, the RSV, which was translating the Greek directly. What the RSV gained by starting with the original was more than lost by their more liberal translating philosophy.

The Catholic CCD Bible, translated from the Latin, is closer to the original Greek than the RSV? I’ve never seen that claim before. Surely it could not be closer to the Greek than the Vulgate itself, could it? Can you give an example?